[FPSPACE] Deep Impact focus flaw due to Ball mistake -- newspaper

[DwayneDay]

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Oberg <joberg at houston.rr.com>
Sent: Jun 10, 2005 11:14 AM

http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_3844441,00.html 

>The problem has been traced to a mirror used when the HRI was tested at Ball, the space agency said. While flat at room temperatures, the mirror unexpectedly developed a slight curvature during testing at ultra-cold temperatures. Ball engineers didn't detect the curvature at the time. 


Interesting--this is different than the initial explanation that they gave, which was that the blurry image was due to moisture still inside the camera.  They stated that normally all cameras have this moisture in them and that it evaporates once in space.  But for some reason it did not in this case.  But obviously they came to a different conclusion after studying the problem.




DDAY